


Bare

by deathwailart



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Headcanon, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2010408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda Lawson gets to see a side of Perdita Shepard no one else has seen as she heads the Lazarus Project</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: bare</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bare

**Author's Note:**

> Connected to [Save Me From Curious Conscience](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1119965) and [Day By Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1095816) but they're not required reading seeing as this is set before them.

She wonders how many people have seen her like this.  
  
It's only something Miranda has allowed herself to think about when Perdita Shepard begins to take shape before her. When she finally looks like a woman and not a corpse that sticks to her gloves leaving greasy black stains she washes carefully into test tubes because there's so little left that they can't afford to lose a single cell. Part of her team are dedicated to finding out every aspect of her life but Miranda is the one with only a thin layer of latex between her and the remains of Perdita Shepard, first human Spectre, her bare bones and burned flesh under her flesh, still and quiet.  
  
Miranda is good. She is better than good. She wouldn't be in charge of this project if she was anything less than that. Still, this isn't a project that's ever been undertaken before and there's the pressure that could crush her if she were anything less than what she is.   
  
The lighting in the lab is garish, too bright to be comfortable but it keeps her awake when she pours every hour into this in the deep of space and it's better to work like this, in a contained environment where there's nowhere to escape work. Where there's no real day and night so the hours can blend together even when the lighting and temperature goes through a subtle change to suggest to them the passage of time. White light and a muted hum that permeates the station.   
  
She stretches her arms above her head, puts on a smile because it's just her and Shepard right now.   
  
"Commander," she greets quietly because if all goes according to plan then this is going to be her life as soon as Shepard is back on her feet. Perdita's brain output is indicative of a deep coma but that's good – it's more than they could have hoped for already and now there is healthy flesh growing, cellular regeneration slow but far above the average because this is cheating death. This isn't like how Miranda herself was made or all the sisters kept or discarded who were at least alive. Shepard died. Died alone and cold in space and now here she is with a heartbeat, neural output, flesh covering her bones, the hopefully seamless melding of cybernetics and implants and the human body. Cells and muscle, bone and blood and there's a tentative warmth now when Miranda touches her. Places electrodes or massages her limbs to make sure the blood flows, to test just how deep the scars are.  
  
She has pictures of Shepard of course before, she knows that there are things that are missing; the scar from Elysium that ran along her cheek, over her nose, an inch of thickened tissue that had been sealed clumsily with medigel. The one on her knee from a fall on her mother's ship as a girl. Her hair is still short but it'll grow longer, dark and thick and glossy, always pulled back into a sensible bun that doesn't hide the scars that mark her as a biotic. Scars she'll still bear now as a necessity even if Miranda sincerely doubts she'll have a single complaint or reason to change the upgraded biotic implants that Miranda has had installed – no one else will have that sort of power, Cerberus patented and if Miranda is honest, she's relishing the first chance she gets to see them in action.  
  
That's still a long way off. She picks up the scanner, running it over, starting from Perdita's toes and working her way up, checking that her work is holding, that Shepard is recovering, that she'll be ready and perfect. Still, it's something to behold, the first human Spectre, the saviour of the Citadel who won them the respect of the other races, the aspiration all humanity should aspire to. Before that a spacer, the Alliance and will to be a part of something so much greater already a part of her. A hero on Elysium. An N7 for god's sake.  
  
But here she lies, still and quiet and Miranda has to think, at peace. How many people can say they have ever seen that?


End file.
